Interestingly, although the Eurasianists claim to represent the hardcore secular wing in Turkey, they recommended actions on Libya at the same level as the Islamists whom Erdoğan represents in Turkey. The foreign policy vision that recognizably began during former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s tenure under the name “neo-Ottomanism” and sought to both dominate the populations of the former Ottoman territories and influence the Muslims of the world through authoritarianism and the further instrumental employment of religion, has failed as far as Erdoğan’s ambition to lead the Muslim world.
Here, they found the economically more powerful Saudi Arabia and the theologically more influential Egypt opposing them almost everywhere in the world. This necessarily pushed them towards a multifaceted and global cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood. After all, Erdoğan’s marriage of nationalism and Islam is after all very much compatible with the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology.
When such circumstances prevail, Erdoğan and the Islamist wing surrounding him, in some way, found themselves supporting the Libyan Government of National Accord’s President Fayez Al Sarraj, a known member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Erdoğan’s Turkey hence opened another front against Saudi Arabia, with whom it has engaged in successive conflicts since the latter half of the 2010s, and against Egypt, towards whom it has explicitly declared its hostility.
0 Comments